When I was young, I felt that I was different from others. Probably many people feel that way, too, but somehow I thought there was something wrong with me. In particular, when I started going to school, I had difficulty following things that others could easily follow. I realized that this was because I concentrate on things deeper than others and I don't hear things when I'm doing something. For example, when the teacher gives us instructions to work on something, I start working on it. When the teacher says stop and do something else, I don't hear it because I'm concentrating on my work. After a while I realize that I'm doing something that other people aren't doing.
This caused a lot of problems during the library time. When we go to the library, we pick a book and read until the end of the class, but once I start reading, I don't hear nothing. When someone tells me that the class is over, I have to think where I was and what I was doing because I'm totally into the book and I don't exist during the reading. Teachers say that it is important to concentrate on your work, but I had to try not to concentrate too much. So I try to keep myself away from the story when I read, and often had to check during the library hour that I am not too much concentrating into it.
Once I heard about autism in the news when I was a teenager. I thought that I was autistic when I heard about the description, but then when I saw them on TV, I knew I wasn't. I wasn't behaving like them, at least to my knowledge. No adults thought anything was wrong with me.
After I became an adult, I heard about Asperger's syndrome. It is a mild form of autism and most of the people function almost normally except social awkwardness and some minor issues. As I read some description, some are perfect fit for me, and some are not. For example, I do have difficulties with motor coordination. I can't ride a bicycle and I can't drive a car. I do well on math. I never get jokes. These are types of things you find in the list of symptoms in Asperger's syndrome.
So I took some online test. I got borderline result normal. According to this site, if you get the score of 32 or more then, you are Asperger's, and I got 31. Anything between 26 to 31 is borderline. I'm not surprised.
I have to say that my condition had become much milder as I grow older. Daily effort of trying to fit in did make me less deep into concentration. I am not sure if that is truly a good thing because when you concentrate, you can do things better, but to live in normal society, you have to know what time it is and you have to do things according to what you are expected to do at certain time. I also miss the sense of being able to go into the story and live as I read fiction as a child. I can not do that any more. When I read a story, now I have myself separated from the story, and honestly, I don't really read so much fiction any more.
Image by BinaryApe on flickr
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